what is your response

[randomman]

quoted from a website .... google "pulsars and quran"

i am interested in what rational argument you can argue against this. i cannot because i am biased to my faith.

my best argument is that this scientific interpretation of the verses is different from the classical interpretation known for the last 1400 years. but this does not necessarily mean that they missunderstood the verse. it is possible that the verses carry different levels of interpretation. myself, i am fascinated by this new interpretation. but i also like the classical metaphorical interpretation.

can you falsify this new interpretation?


=====================================
Neutron stars are remnants of exploded stars (see: Iron). As more matter falls into a neutron star its mass increases; and as its mass increases its gravity increases. A point will be reached where gravity would have grown so much that not even light could escape, thus a black hole forms.
Most neutron stars discovered today are in the form of radio pulsars. They are called radio pulsars because they emit radio waves. We can simply connect a radio telescope to a loud speaker and hear a pulsar. Pulsars sound like someone persistently knocking. Click here and listen to a slow knocking pulsar. Click here and listen to a fast knocking pulsar.

So in short, we can hear a pulsar knock; and if matter continues to fall into this pulsar a black hole will eventually form. Moslems say that this is what Allah says. The Quran describes a star by "The one who knocks" and says that it is "The one who makes a hole".

[Quran 86.1-3]And the heaven and the "Knocker" (Tarek in Arabic) 2 How could you know about the "Knocker"? 3 The piercing star (Thakeb in Arabic).​

​

The Arabic word "Thukb" means a hole; "Thakeb" means the one who makes the hole. The Quran is describing a knocking star that makes a hole.

At the center of this black hole (collapsed star) lies a location where gravity has gone so mad that space and time become indistinguishable. From general relativity we know that this is a location where the structure of spacetime becomes singular (hence the name singularity). However singular (Ahad in Arabic) is one of God's 99 names. In the Quran God swears by the location of stars which turned out to be His own name:

[Quran 56.75-77] I swear by the location of stars, 76 it is a great swear if you knew, 77 it is a noble Quran...​

​

Here God swears not by the stars themselves but rather by their location (mawakeh in Arabic). Today we know that this location is singular, that is, its description carries God's own name: "Ahad".

 

[tulc]

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Maybe you can explain?
tulc(just curious)

 

[vajradhara]

my response is that this should be asked in the Science forum... which on this site is cleverly disguised as the Creation and Evolution forum.

metta,

~v

 

[Vene]

It's an ad hoc (after the fact) explanation. It's no different than when Christians say that their Bible suggests heliocentricism, despite centuries of teaching geocentricism.

 

[Montalban]

It's an ad hoc (after the fact) explanation. It's no different than when Christians say that their Bible suggests heliocentricism, despite centuries of teaching geocentricism.

The Greeks (viz. Claudius Ptolemy) taught geocenticism as did divers other civilizations

Further, Orthodox Christians don't tie their faith to science. So you can't blame all Chrisitans
“Long ago (in the 4th century!) one of the Church's teachers Vasilius the Great wrote about this. He advised the Orthodox Christians neither to rely upon the scientific data in order to provide foundation for their faith in Christ, nor to try to disprove them, because “the scientists permanently disprove themselves.”

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/age-of-earth.htm

Heliocentricism was wrong, too, by the way! It was understood as the sun being the centre of the universe (not just the solar system).

 

[Vene]

The Greeks (viz. Claudius Ptolemy) taught geocenticism as did divers other civilizations

Further, Orthodox Christians don't tie their faith to science. So you can't blame all Chrisitans
“Long ago (in the 4th century!) one of the Church's teachers Vasilius the Great wrote about this. He advised the Orthodox Christians neither to rely upon the scientific data in order to provide foundation for their faith in Christ, nor to try to disprove them, because “the scientists permanently disprove themselves.”

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/age-of-earth.htm

Heliocentricism was wrong, too, by the way! It was understood as the sun being the centre of the universe (not just the solar system).

I am aware of the Greek viewpoint. However, I was unaware of Vasilius, thanks for the info. It still doesn't mean that Galileo wasn't branded as a heretic. Also, heliocentricism isn't the best model, but it is still a lot better than geocentricism.

 

[arunma]

I am aware of the Greek viewpoint. However, I was unaware of Vasilius, thanks for the info. It still doesn't mean that Galileo wasn't branded as a heretic. Also, heliocentricism isn't the best model, but it is still a lot better than geocentricism.

Tyndale was branded a heretic (and burned at the stake) for translating the Bible into English, and this when he had only completed translating the first five books. Would you suggest that Biblical doctrine is opposed to translation of the Bible?

You seem to put a lot more stock in church authority than even we Christians do.

my response is that this should be asked in the Science forum... which on this site is cleverly disguised as the Creation and Evolution forum.

metta,

~v

FYI: CF does have a forum dedicated to science other than the Creation/Evolution one. It's called "Physical and Life Sciences." Granted, it's not nearly as active as Creation/Evolution.

 

[arunma]

Randomman, Vene's ignorance of history and the phrase "ad hoc" notwithstanding (no offence intended Vene, but your understanding of the geocentrism issue and Galileo is incorrect here), he does make a valid point about this being an after the fact explanation. Even if we allow for the possibility that the author of the Quran had astronomy in mind when he wrote this passage, he could very well have been referring to visible stars, which appear to vary in radiant intensity as seen through the atmosphere. I searched a few different English translations of the Quran; none of them have the apparently selective translation that you've chosen. Verse 1 refers to either "the Sky and the Night," or "heaven and the Morning Star."

Also, your comment about singularities is nonsense. I'm an astrophysics grad student whose research is related to black holes, and I can tell you that the mathematical term "singularity" doesn't refer to the sort of oneness that the Arabic term describes. It refers to a peculiarity of the metric tensor of space-time, but not oneness. I'm stepping out of my field of expertise here (since I know neither Hebrew nor Arabic), but the word ahad in Arabic seems to be a cognate of the Hebrew echad, which signifies the oneness of God, for example, as used in Deuteronomy 6:4. This is quite different from a singularity in the mathematics of general relativity. In fact, if I remember my senior year cosmology correctly, the event horizon of the black hole, where the metric tensor vanishes, is also called a "singularity." This would pretty much negate the alleged uniqueness of Allah.

Here's the problem. The term "singularity" is a word invented by mathematicians to denote points where a function is discontinuous and where the derivative goes to the a certain infinity from all directions, and it was borrowed by astrophysicists and cosmologists for our purposes of describing black holes. Apparently there's an Arabic word for oneness which you have selectively translated so as to make a connection with the mathematics of cosmology. After making the selective translation, you expect us to see a genuine connection between the Quran and science. That's just plain foolish. Do you understand why?

 

[Montalban]

I am aware of the Greek viewpoint. However, I was unaware of Vasilius, thanks for the info. It still doesn't mean that Galileo wasn't branded as a heretic. Also, heliocentricism isn't the best model, but it is still a lot better than geocentricism.

Galileo wasn't branded a heretic by us.

As far as I know, the Catholic church condemned him for teaching full stop, not what he taught. At least you didn't bring up Giordano Bruno


Anyways this is what the RC Church says about it...
In the spring of 1599, the trial was begun before a commission of the Roman Inquisition, and, after the accused had been granted several terms of respite in which to retract his errors, he was finally condemned (January, 1600), handed over to the secular power (8 February), and burned at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome (17 February). Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

Under the sentence of imprisonment Galileo remained till his death in 1642. It is, however, untrue to speak of him as in any proper sense a "prisoner". As his Protestant biographer, von Gebler, tells us, "One glance at the truest historical source for the famous trial, would convince any one that Galileo spent altogether twenty-two days in the buildings of the Holy Office (i.e. the Inquisition), and even then not in a prison cell with barred windows, but in the handsome and commodious apartment of an official of the Inquisition." For the rest, he was allowed to use as his places of confinement the houses of friends, always comfortable and usually luxurious. It is wholly untrue that he was... either tortured or blinded by his persecutors -- though in 1637, five years before his death, he became totally blind -- or that he was refused burial in consecrated ground. On the contrary, although the pope (Urban VIII) did not allow a monument to be erected over his tomb, he sent his special blessing to the dying man, who was interred not only in consecrated ground, but within the church of Santa Croce at Florence.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm

 

[Vene]

Galileo wasn't branded a heretic by us.

As far as I know, the Catholic church condemned him for teaching full stop, not what he taught. At least you didn't bring up Giordano Bruno


Anyways this is what the RC Church says about it...
In the spring of 1599, the trial was begun before a commission of the Roman Inquisition, and, after the accused had been granted several terms of respite in which to retract his errors, he was finally condemned (January, 1600), handed over to the secular power (8 February), and burned at the stake in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome (17 February). Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

Under the sentence of imprisonment Galileo remained till his death in 1642. It is, however, untrue to speak of him as in any proper sense a "prisoner". As his Protestant biographer, von Gebler, tells us, "One glance at the truest historical source for the famous trial, would convince any one that Galileo spent altogether twenty-two days in the buildings of the Holy Office (i.e. the Inquisition), and even then not in a prison cell with barred windows, but in the handsome and commodious apartment of an official of the Inquisition." For the rest, he was allowed to use as his places of confinement the houses of friends, always comfortable and usually luxurious. It is wholly untrue that he was... either tortured or blinded by his persecutors -- though in 1637, five years before his death, he became totally blind -- or that he was refused burial in consecrated ground. On the contrary, although the pope (Urban VIII) did not allow a monument to be erected over his tomb, he sent his special blessing to the dying man, who was interred not only in consecrated ground, but within the church of Santa Croce at Florence.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm

Maybe I should have been more specific.

 

[français]

Back to the original topic at hand.. I agree with Vene that it is ad hoc. Ibn Kathir never mentioned black holes, nor have any of the Madhabs interpreted this as such. So why all of a sudden! Hm, probably because arabic is easy to mess with to render to fit one's needs...

 

[randomman]

Back to the original topic at hand.. I agree with Vene that it is ad hoc. Ibn Kathir never mentioned black holes, nor have any of the Madhabs interpreted this as such. So why all of a sudden! Hm, probably because arabic is easy to mess with to render to fit one's needs...

actually i find it amazing .... it reflects the complexity of the language ... Quran being interpreted on many different levels, yet not causing contradictions (contradictions from my islamic point view)

 

[Montalban]

actually i find it amazing .... it reflects the complexity of the language ... Quran being interpreted on many different levels, yet not causing contradictions (contradictions from my islamic point view)

There's something amazing in that you read into your Koran things that aren't there.

 

[randomman]

There's something amazing in that you read into your Koran things that aren't there.

sorry, i cannot see what you see

i guess everyone is fascinated by something

 

[ApplePie7]

quoted from a website .... google "pulsars and quran"

i am interested in what rational argument you can argue against this. i cannot because i am biased to my faith.

my best argument is that this scientific interpretation of the verses is different from the classical interpretation known for the last 1400 years. but this does not necessarily mean that they missunderstood the verse. it is possible that the verses carry different levels of interpretation. myself, i am fascinated by this new interpretation. but i also like the classical metaphorical interpretation.

can you falsify this new interpretation?


=====================================
Neutron stars are remnants of exploded stars (see: Iron). As more matter falls into a neutron star its mass increases; and as its mass increases its gravity increases. A point will be reached where gravity would have grown so much that not even light could escape, thus a black hole forms.
Most neutron stars discovered today are in the form of radio pulsars. They are called radio pulsars because they emit radio waves. We can simply connect a radio telescope to a loud speaker and hear a pulsar. Pulsars sound like someone persistently knocking. Click here and listen to a slow knocking pulsar. Click here and listen to a fast knocking pulsar.



So in short, we can hear a pulsar knock; and if matter continues to fall into this pulsar a black hole will eventually form. Moslems say that this is what Allah says. The Quran describes a star by "The one who knocks" and says that it is "The one who makes a hole".

[Quran 86.1-3]And the heaven and the "Knocker" (Tarek in Arabic) 2 How could you know about the "Knocker"? 3 The piercing star (Thakeb in Arabic).​

​

The Arabic word "Thukb" means a hole; "Thakeb" means the one who makes the hole. The Quran is describing a knocking star that makes a hole.



At the center of this black hole (collapsed star) lies a location where gravity has gone so mad that space and time become indistinguishable. From general relativity we know that this is a location where the structure of spacetime becomes singular (hence the name singularity). However singular (Ahad in Arabic) is one of God's 99 names. In the Quran God swears by the location of stars which turned out to be His own name:

[Quran 56.75-77] I swear by the location of stars, 76 it is a great swear if you knew, 77 it is a noble Quran...​

​

Here God swears not by the stars themselves but rather by their location (mawakeh in Arabic). Today we know that this location is singular, that is, its description carries God's own name: "Ahad".

Sura 86 is named "The Morning Star" in honor of Jesus' Second Coming.

It has nothing at all to do with overzealously bad islamic science.

 

[français]

actually i find it amazing .... it reflects the complexity of the language ... Quran being interpreted on many different levels, yet not causing contradictions (contradictions from my islamic point view)

.. Muhammad had the Qu'ran memorized, as he was the author of this poetic book. He knew what to say and what not, because he knew what would contradict what. Also, remember that the Qu'ran is not a very large book. Not only that,but remember abrogation.

And lastly, look at the Torah, and the Torah alone.. Yes, there are some contradictions. But every Jew will say there is not. And you know how many people wrote the Torah? 4-6!! Does that make it godly all of a sudden? Of course not.